The vast majority of research on civil war and political violence focuses on the “developing world.” Which makes sense, since that there is where we find most contemporary conflict.
But it’s worth remembering how widespread violence has been in what we now consider the relatively calm, stable, non-violent developed world as well. And often very recently. Here are a few works I’m familiar with – staggeringly far from complete, of course – that provide insights into this history and its implications for the present. I’ll be adding new items as I remember them, come across them, or get recommendations.
Siniawer, Ruffians, Yakuza, Nationalists: The Violent Politics of Modern Japan.
Obert, The Six-Shooter State: Public and Private Violence in American Politics.
Mobrand, “The Street Leaders of Seoul and the Foundations of the South Korean Political Order,” Modern Asian Studies.
Frymer, Building an American Empire: The Era of Territorial and Political Expansion.
Gerwarth, The Vanquished: Why the First World War Failed to End.
Diehl, Paramilitary Politics in Weimar Germany.
Cunningham, There’s Something Happening Here: The New Left, the Klan, and FBI Counterintelligence and Klansville, USA: The Rise and Fall of the Civil Rights-era Ku Klux Klan.
Belew, Bring the War Home: The White Power Movement and Paramilitary America.
Bloom and Martin, Black Against Empire: The History and Politics of the Black Panther Party.
Foner, Reconstruction: America’s Unfinished Revolution, 1863-1877.
Bensel, Yankee Leviathan: The Origins of Central State Authority in America, 1859-1877.
Balcells, Rivalry and Revenge: the Politics of Violence During Civil War (about Spain)
Gerwarth and Horne, War in Peace: Paramilitary Politics in Europe after the Great War.
Della Porta, Social Movements, Political Violence, and the State: A Comparative Analysis of Italy and Germany.
Kopstein and Wittenberg, Intimate Violence: Anti-Jewish Pogroms on the Eve of the Holocaust.
Acharya, Blackwell, and Sen, Deep Roots: How Slavery Still Shapes Southern Politics.
Soss and Weaver, “Police are our Government: Politics, Political Science, and the Policing of Race-Class Subjugated Communities,” Annual Review of Political Science.
Wachsmann, KL: A History of the Nazi Concentration Camps.
Kalyvas, The Logic of Violence in Civil War (chapters on Greece).
Hoffman, Anonymous Soldiers: The Struggle for Israel, 1917-1947.
Volkov, Violent Entrepreneurs: The Use of Force in the Making of Russian Capitalism.
Paul Staniland 